Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: tracks

This photo was taken on 9 January 2016, when I took part in a Mid-winter Bust-out trip east of the city, led by Terry Korolyk. Eight of us, plus our leader, took part in this day trip - maybe when everyone else saw what the temperature was first thing in the morning (-23C, not counting windchill, which would have made it much colder), they changed their mind about going! Everything was covered in a heavy layer of hoar frost, which turned everywhere into a beautiful winter wonderland. The sky was blue - what more could anyone want? Well, a few birds would be nice, of course : ) The highlight of the day was seeing 6 Short-eared Owls, in addition to 6 Snowy Owls (7 seen by the people in the other cars, when we split up at the end of the day). As a photographer, though, the only birds that were barely close enough were two of the Snowy Owls. All the Short-eared Owls were tiny dots in the landscape. I don't know how anyone was able to spot them! Most of the photos I took of anything were so blurry and not fit for use. Zoomed in shots, especially, suffered from heat distortion - and distorted they are! Our meeting place was right across the city; a drive that I never enjoy at all, but I really didn't want to miss this outing. Some of the roads we travelled were ones that I had driven several times before. Most of the time, though, I had no idea where we were : ) As always happens on any day that I go anywhere, I turned my camera lens to anything else of interest/beauty, even more so when the birds are way, way off in the distance. Thank you, Terry - it was a great day and much appreciated, as always! You did an excellent write-up of the whole day (not posted here). Many thanks for driving some of us, Andrew.

Two days ago, on 4 March 2018, it was such a beautiful day, and I decided to join seven friends for a walk down into Weaselhead in the afternoon. The previous day, a birding walk had been cancelled because the weather was so bad and the long, steep hill down to river level was very icy. It is almost unheard of for a birding walk to be cancelled! The roads were not in good condition especially the residential streets. I have a bad feeling that my car is now stuck in the ruts outside my place - when I got home after the walk, it was almost impossible to drive over the mounds of snow that have built up over the last few months. Not sure how I am going to be able to reverse out of this spot. Guess I will find out. I have lived in this city for 40 years and I don't remember ever seeing this much snow on the ground. Just crazy. There were not a whole lot of birds to be seen on yesterday's walk, but it is always a delight to see the dainty little Common Redpolls. I seem to remember that last winter, there were no Redpolls to be seen. Nice to see a beautiful lone Coyote travelling across the frozen, snow-covered Elbow River. I will add the leaders' list of species seen in a comment box below. Coffee at Tim Horton's afterwards was enjoyable, as always. Thanks for a great walk, Janet, Bernie and Stephen! I always appreciate your giving up your Sunday afternoon for the rest of us. I made the mistake of checking the weather forecast for Alberta for the coming spring and summer, though of course we all know that the forecast is often incorrect. For us, it will be a cold spring followed by an above normal summer. More big storms to come - actually, March is said to be our snowiest month, anyway. Looks like it could be another year without mushrooms growing, just like last year. The temperature this morning, 6 March 2018, is -17C (windchill -17C).

A huge leap from the rainforest of Trinidad photos posted yesterday to the snowy shots posted today! Yesterday, 4 March 2018, was such a beautiful day, and I decided to join seven friends for a walk down into Weaselhead in the afternoon. The previous day, a birding walk had been cancelled because the weather was so bad and the long, steep hill down to river level was very icy. It is almost unheard of for a birding walk to be cancelled! The roads were not in good condition especially the residential streets. I have a bad feeling that my car is now stuck in the ruts outside my place - when I got home after the walk, it was almost impossible to drive over the mounds of snow that have built up over the last few months. Not sure how I am going to be able to reverse out of this spot. Guess I will find out. I have lived in this city for 40 years and I don't remember ever seeing this much snow on the ground. Just crazy. There were not a whole lot of birds to be seen on yesterday's walk, but it is always a delight to see the dainty little Common Redpolls. I seem to remember that last winter, there were no Redpolls to be seen. Nice to see a beautiful lone Coyote travelling across the frozen, snow-covered Elbow River. I will add the leaders' list of species seen in a comment box below. Coffee at Tim Horton's afterwards was enjoyable, as always. Thanks for a great walk, Janet, Bernie and Stephen! I always appreciate your giving up your Sunday afternoon for the rest of us. I made the mistake of checking the weather forecast for Alberta for the coming spring and summer, though of course we all know that the forecast is often incorrect. For us, it will be a cold spring followed by an above normal summer. More big storms to come - actually, March is said to be our snowiest month, anyway. Looks like it could be another year without mushrooms growing, just like last year. The temperature this morning, 5 March 2018, is -22C (windchill -29C).

Yesterday, 18 January 2018, I almost came home with an empty memory card in my camera. Luckily, we were treated to a distant view of a Pileated Woodpecker at the furthest point of our walk, and then to a couple of gorgeous Pine Grosbeak males feeding on berries. Usually, when I see Pine Grosbeaks, they are either flying high overhead or else perched at the top of a very tall tree in the distance. To see them close shows them in all their glory. In some ways, I think a back view is the most beautiful, showing the black and white wing pattern. Much as I would love to jump in my car and go for a drive, I just haven't been able to do so the last 10 or so days, dealing with various services shutting down after my credit card was compromised by someone in eastern Canada, and consequently cancelled. So, a morning's walk in Fish Creek Park with a group of friends sounded appealing, especially as others had seen a Black-backed Woodpecker, a Three-toed Woodpecker and even the tiny Northern Pygmy-owl. As almost always happens, none of these birds were seen yesterday, ha. "Fish Creek Park is a provincial park located in the southern part of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It is the second largest urban park in Canada after Pippy Park in St. John's and one of the largest urban parks in North America, stretching 19 km (12 mi) from east to west. At 13.48 km2 (5.20 sq mi), it is over three times the size of Vancouver's Stanley Park. The growth of Calgary has left the park bordered on all sides by the city. It is also bordered on the west by the territory of the Tsuu T’ina Nation (Sarcee), a First Nation. Fish Creek flows along the length of the park and joins the Bow River at the east side of the park. Fish Creek park used to span the width of the city but Calgary has grown beyond the edges of the park." From Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_Creek_Provincial_Park We are still having milder weather, often sunny and even a few degrees above 0°C on some days. Yesterday was 2C-7C, which felt wonderful. Perfect weather for getting out ... sigh. We know there is still plenty of snow that will come before spring arrives.

Note to anyone who belongs to the ipernity website (includes me): ipernity will be closing. A great shame, but also frustrating. I have all 12,644 of my images and descriptions on ipernity - exactly the same as on Flickr. No idea where we are supposed to move to now, if anywhere. Does anyone have any ideas for good sites? www.ipernity.com/blog/team/4642052 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On 22 November 2016, I was finally able to remove the White-tailed Ptarmigan from the top of my mental Wish List! Over the last few years, I have been with a friend maybe four or five times to look for these in the mountains, without any luck. I had told friends that this year, if I didn't see one of these grouse, I would build a snowman bird and photograph it. A lot of very deep snow in the whole area! This photo was taken from the road before I climbed half way down a short slope. These birds tend to walk around in just one very small area at a time, feeding on the Willow buds, and then the group lies down, some of them burrowing till just the head and neck are visible, or some will burrow till they disappear completely under the snow. Every now and then, you can hear the little sounds they make. After resting, they repeat the process. It was just so exciting to see 15 of these beautiful birds with friends, Dorothy and Stephen. Of course, to see just one bird would have been thrilling, too. We would definitely never have found them without help from several other friends. As you can imagine, spotting a white bird against a snowy background from a great distance is pretty well impossible - this photo was taken at Focal Length (35mm format) - 1200 mm with my point-and-shoot. "The smallest grouse in North America, the White-tailed Ptarmigan inhabits alpine regions from Alaska to New Mexico. It has numerous adaptations to its severe habitat, including feathered toes, highly cryptic plumage, and an energy-conserving daily regime." From AllAboutBirds. www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/White-tailed_Ptarmigan/id "The white-tailed ptarmigan (Lagopus leucura), also known as the snow quail, is the smallest bird in the grouse family. It is a permanent resident of high altitudes on or above the tree line and is native to Alaska and the mountainous parts of Canada and the western United States. It has also been introduced into the Sierra Nevada in California, the Wallowa Mountains in Oregon and the Uinta Mountains in Utah. Its plumage is cryptic and varies at different times of the year. In the summer it is speckled in gray, brown and white whereas in winter it is wholly white. At all times of year the wings, belly and tail are white. The white-tailed ptarmigan has a diet of buds, leaves, flowers and seeds. The nest is a simple depression in the ground in which up to eight eggs are laid. After hatching, the chicks soon leave the nest. At first they eat insects but later move on to an adult diet, their mother using vocalisations to help them find suitable plant food. The population seems to be stable and the IUCN lists this species as being of "Least Concern". From Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-tailed_ptarmigan Thanks so much, Dorothy and Stephen, for inviting me to go out for a day in the mountains. A day that turned out to be really great, helping us to see these beautiful 'lifers'.

Now that's heavy hoar frost! This photo was taken a week ago, on 9 January 2016, when I took part in a Mid-winter Bust-out trip east of the city, led by Terry Korolyk. Eight of us, plus our leader, took part in this day trip - maybe when everyone else saw what the temperature was first thing in the morning (-23C, not counting windchill, which would have made it much colder), they changed their mind about going! Everything was covered in a thick blanket of hoar frost, which turned everywhere into a beautiful winter wonderland. The sky was blue - what more could anyone want? Well, a few birds would be nice, of course : ) The highlight of the day was seeing 6 Short-eared Owls, in addition to 6 Snowy Owls (7 seen by the people in the other cars, when we split up at the end of the day). As a photographer, though, the only birds that were close enough were two of the Snowy Owls, and we kept our distance from those. All the Short-eared Owls were tiny dots in the landscape. I don't know how anyone was able to spot them! Most of the photos I took of anything yesterday are so blurry and not fit for use. Zoomed in shots, especially, suffered from heat distortion - and distorted they are! Our meeting place was right across the city; a drive that I never enjoy at all, but I really didn't want to miss this outing. Some of the roads we travelled were ones that I had driven several times before. Most of the time, though, I had no idea where we were : ) As always happens on any day that I go anywhere, I turned my camera lens to anything else of interest/beauty, even more so when the birds are way, way off in the distance. I will add the list of bird species seen that Andrew H. compiled. Many thanks for driving some of us. Thank you, Terry - it was a great day and much appreciated, as always! You did an excellent write-up of the whole day (not posted here). 3 Canada Goose 4 Rough-legged Hawk 6 Snowy Owl 6 Short-eared Owl 1 Downy Woodpecker 34 Black-billed Magpie 46 Common Raven 73 Horned Lark 1 Black-capped Chickadee 75 Snow Bunting 511 Common Redpoll 1 Hoary Redpoll 32 House Sparrow Link to this photo on Flickr: flic.kr/p/CCSFEM

Yesterday, 11 January 2015, my daughter went in for supposedly day surgery, but phoned me after she was moved from the recovery room, to say that they were keeping her in overnight. She wasn't able to give me any details, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it was all straight forward. Speedy recovery, Rachel! At least you are in the best place for the time being, but I hope it won't be too long before you can go home. Being at home with a hot mug of coffee seems so much more appealing than being outdoors on an overcast, cold winter's day! However, sometimes I manage to push myself out the door and either go somewhere on my own or join a few friends for a birding walk. Two days ago, on 10 January 2016, I joined a group of friends to go for an afternoon birding walk at Carburn Park. The weather was warmer than the previous day's trip east of the city to look for Snowy Owls and Short-eared Owls, when it was around -23C in the morning. The sun was shining and I just needed to get out. This photo shows the Bow River, seen from the bridge at Carburn Park. Have to admit that down by the river is not my favourite place to walk, as most of the birds are always on the far side of the river, making it a real challenge for a photographer. Thanks so much, Janet and Bernie, for an enjoyable walk and seeing 21 bird species. As always, the coffee and soup afterwards at Tim Horton's was just as enjoyable as the walk itself. FFCPPSoc. Birding,Carburn Park , 1315-1600, Sun, 10Jan2016. Sunny, calm, -2°C. Canada Goose-50 Mallard-200 Redhead-4 (3 f/1 m. Greater Scaup-1 f. Bufflehead-100 Common Goldeneye-400 Barrows X Common Goldeneye-1 m. hybrid Barrow's Goldeneye-5 (4 m./1 f.). Common Merganser-10 RED-BREASTED MERGANSER-1 juvenile m. PIED-BILLED GREBE-1 Bald Eagle-10+ KILLDEER-7. Downy Woodpecker-5 Northern Flicker-2 Black-billed Magpie-20 AMERICAN CROW-10 Common Raven-8 Black-capped Chickadee-20 White-breasted Nuthatch-2 Common Redpoll-12 Eastern Gray Squirrel, black morph-4 White-tailed Deer-5

This is just another example of good luck with timing, when friends, Cathy and Terry, and I, spent two amazing days in the Rocky Mountains, west of Calgary. This CP Rail train came along just at the right time. My friends and I left Calgary early morning on Wednesday (14 May 2014) and I think it was around 12:15 a.m. midnight (Thursday, 15 May 2014), that they dropped me off at home after two long, wonderful days in the Rocky Mountains. Wednesday night was spent in a spotless motel, in a place that had so many Mountain Sheep roaming the streets, lol! Though we were hoping to see at least one Bear, I was happy as can be to see absolutely anything beautiful : ) Over the two days, we had 7 bear sightings, with three definitely different Black Bears (no Grizzlies), and possibly four. The rest of the sightings were of Bears we had already seen. My friends are good at telling individual bears, often by a certain scar and, of course, the actual location. Many of the bears we see, they have seen before. Basically, it's all about timing, as with any wildlife - and this train! A few minutes earlier or later and we would have missed seeing something special. We just happened to be lucky. All wildlife/nature photographers know it's all about timing : )

Pushed myself out the front door this afternoon to go on a walk from Glennfield to Shaw's Meadow, Fish Creek Park. The sun was shining and the temperature was about -8C (windchill about -14C), but it felt much colder. Not sure where all the wildlife was - I didn't see even one little Chickadee, but did see a Raven and a Magpie and heard a Downy Woodpecker. Bird numbers seem to be extremely low these days.

I just liked the way the sun was lighting the snow and these tracks the other day, east of Bebo Grove in Fish Creek Park. Looks like someone cross-country skied. I wonder what the other, smaller, fainter track is that crosses diagonally. Any suggestions?

We came across these Porcupine tracks at Carburn Park on April 19th. I think this was the first time I had ever seen a pattern like this in the snow. Hope the little guy has a clearer path by now! It did snow heavily again yesterday, but most of it didn't stick to the ground, just the grass was rather white. The forecast for today was more snow, but this afternoon is nice and sunny. Snow/rain showers for tomorrow and chance of thundershowers tomorrow afternoon (up to 8C).

Yet another view of the "famous five" red sheds south of Calgary : ) I had been looking forward to seeing them surrounded by piles of snow, but I found that there was far less snow than I had been expecting. Still pretty, though, I thought, including the curves of the tracks. Got home 45 minutes ago (7:15 p.m.) from a long day's Christmas Bird Count in the Snake's Head/Sundre area, north west of Calgary. This was our final Count. My alarm was set for 3:50 a.m., though it took me a while to drag myself out of bed after only one hour of sleep! An overcast day today with a few snowflakes and a temperature, I think, of around -12C.

This little spot down by the Bow River caught my eye about five weeks ago. I liked the contrasting patterns and shadows, and especially the texture of the area in the top right corner. Much as I find the cold so unpleasant, I know I will miss the beauty that winter has to offer.

Just a simple image of crossing car tire marks down in the parking lot of my local park. For some reason, the patterns in the snow really attracted me that day - was it a slow birding day perhaps?

A similar idea to a recent photo, but far more complicated than the simple X.

Any kind of patterns in snow seem to fascinate me!

You can really see how bad the birding was! A case of "Desperately Seeking Anne"! Just trying to catch a few shadows and shapes.

These patterns puzzled me more when I got home than they did when I was actually photographing them. Does anyone have any ideas how these tracks were made in the snow? They are quite large.